Trying to determine why it costs $3 million, including $400,000 in 'planning', to add 160 asphalt parking spots to a 5 year-old bus station. And if they're worth the trouble.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

NY Department of Transportation Speaks

Many thanks to Adam Levine, public affairs officer at the NYDoT, for answering these questions about the $400,000 being spent to 'plan and design' the additional spots before taking off for vacation.

He actually pulled a 24-hour turn around which is pretty amazing considering I'm an unpaid citizen activist blogger.

1.) How many people were involved in planning and designing this lot and over what period of time? What would be the estimated number of hours spent to bill $400k?

Including NYSDOT and consulting engineering staff, 8-9 people worked on the project over a 16-month period, spending a total of about 3000 hours designing the expansion.

As with the cost estimate, I will be glad to share with you the fruits of their labor, in the form of the project plans, once the project has been awarded.

2) Were any outside design/planning firms hired? Who were they?The consulting firms that assisted us in preparing the design were a joint venture among Bechtel Corp., WSP Sells and URS Corporation. As they are working under the direction of the department, I ask that you direct your questions to me and I will get your answers. One person's muzzling is another person's taking responsibility and standing up for our actions and decisions.

3) What needs to be done to plan and design 160 open-air parking spots?As each site is unique, we can say that in this case, traffic and environmental issues needed to be analyzed and a design report needed to be prepared summarizing the project analysis. After these were completed, design of the park-and-ride details could be performed.

4) What were some of the obstacles to getting this project through? (You'd mentioned a bird reserve nearby)

I don't recall mentioning birds, but there are wetlands near the project, both existing and recently developed. We also wanted to make sure we stayed within an envelope that would not preclude other uses of nearby land along the Korean War Veterans Parkway, and we also had to make provisions for the temporary retention of storm water on the site, while the existing drainage system was being worked on as part of the expansion.

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The Purpose of this Blog

To document the progress of a smallish taxpayer-funded stimulus project.

This one involves $2.6 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for a $3 million project (including state dollars for design and planning) to beef up the existing Eltingville Transit Center park-and-ride in Staten Island by adding 160 new parking spots to the existing 225 spaces.

Some $32 million in ARRA dollars have been tucked aside for transportation projects in New York City so the Eltingville dig is absorbing about a tenth of the Big Apple's 'shovel ready' stim funds. The lot was originally built in 2004.

This oversight blog was launched July 2. The Department of Transportation expects to announce which bidding firm will complete the project by mid-August. That leaves a narrow 6-week window to determine whether, at $18,750 apiece, these babies are worth it before ground is broken.

Questions That Need Answering

1. Why did it cost the New York Department of Transportation $400,000 to "plan and design" 160 parking spots?

2. Why does the NYDOT estimate that it will cost $2.6 million in stimulus bucks to "build" 160 asphalt open air parking spots?

3. How much did it cost to build the Park and Ride in 2004 and why didn't they build more spots?

Partial Answer: The original lot cost $5.4M

4. Will the extra 160 parking spots be sufficient for a growing population?

5. Why didn't they build more parking spots in the first place?

6. What is Beaver Concrete doing next door to the Eltingville Park and Ride?